After reading through your comments we have decided to go back to the drawing board on implants— John Smedley (@j_smedley) July 18, 2013

Sony Online Entertainment has a lot planned for its free-to-play shooter Planetside 2. To keep the community plugged in, it has a roadmap where players can vote on the features they like the best. An upcoming feature that would have added implants that grant buffs to players has been scrapped, despite garnering a high number of votes. SOE president John Smedley tweeted that implants won't be in the next patch, and that it will rework the idea.

The announcement comes after Planetside 2's subreddit was flooded with various complaints. Most of the arguments seem to center around the fact that the implants would be both consumable (and thus temporary), and available in the cash shop, thus becoming pay-to-win, according to posters. Many also referenced creative director's Matt Higby's assurance that "anything that affects gameplay, such as grenades or medkits or implants that give you additional power within the game, will be exclusively unlocked via [in-game] resources."

The implants would have added special bonuses like silent footsteps, less falling damage, and increased spot distance.

Meanwhile, Planetside 2's next update, GU13, will launch later this month without the implants. The major update will add new weapons and overhaul almost every facility on the Esamir continent, among other tweaks. While the game is currently free-to-play on the PC, Sony plans to launch it on the Playstation 4 sometime in the future.

They could just make it so you can't buy it with station cash and it'd be fine. In game currency comes so damn slow in that game that it wouldn't be too huge an issue then.

The important thing is they go away when you die and most of them, as far as I saw, weren't all that amazin. The spot distance was a decent one, but you could always shoot at people long before you could spot them so it was a moot point. People claimed you needed them to be competitive, but meh to that. You die so often in that game that I'd rather spend my certs on things that are goin to last me longer than 30 seconds.

About the best thing in Planetside 2 is that a completely new player with no money into the game can make a useful contribution in battle (provided they play the tutorial and play with the VR lab a bit first). Going pay to win would just clear out the servers as paid units trample across the map, that's no fun.

Well that'sa major bullet dodged. If I plan to play this some time in the future, I don't want to be curbstomped byt the rich bastards who plonked down absurd amounts of money to become invincible super soldiers.

Heh, I must admit. Stuff like this keeps confusing the heck out of me.

SOE doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to MMOs. On the contrary, they've got about the worst one you can get.

Yet most of what I hear from Smedley is oddly the opposite. Planetside 2 seems to be going in the right direction. EQ Next, from what little there is known about it, might just turn out to be something very, very interesting.

I quite honestly don't really know what to think anymore, guess I'll have to wait and see how future SOE projects turn out. Probably it's all just PR talk, but maybe we can get a break some time and have a MMO studio actually produce something amazing for a change.

I think people prefer paying a flat fee for an equal gaming experience if they can have a trial of it rather than the f2p model because you hear nothing but complaints whenever the devs make the grind harder for something or give a pay-for buff/ammo/whatever... in a lot of games you pay to RENT digital items

People swear it's so much better but then start yelling "pay to win! pay to win!"

IanDavis:. An upcoming feature that would have added implants that grant buffs to players has been scrapped, despite garnering a high number of votes. SOE president John Smedley tweeted that implants won't be in the next patch, and that it will rework the idea.

I'm confused. If the player-base voted highly for this, then why the outcry?

IanDavis:. An upcoming feature that would have added implants that grant buffs to players has been scrapped, despite garnering a high number of votes. SOE president John Smedley tweeted that implants won't be in the next patch, and that it will rework the idea.

I'm confused. If the player-base voted highly for this, then why the outcry?

They wanted implants.

Sony THEN told the playerbase it was pay-only.

Planetside is so pay to win now people are leaving, and they are only bringing it to PS4 to try to save it from death.

Hagi:Heh, I must admit. Stuff like this keeps confusing the heck out of me.

SOE doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to MMOs. On the contrary, they've got about the worst one you can get.

Yet most of what I hear from Smedley is oddly the opposite. Planetside 2 seems to be going in the right direction. EQ Next, from what little there is known about it, might just turn out to be something very, very interesting.

I quite honestly don't really know what to think anymore, guess I'll have to wait and see how future SOE projects turn out. Probably it's all just PR talk, but maybe we can get a break some time and have a MMO studio actually produce something amazing for a change.

Captcha: Never gonna give you up

Crap... Rick-rolled by Captcha... What are the odds...

Planetside2 in the right direction?

Its been copying battlefield for months. When battlefield added a crossbow, suddenly the devs said how it was crucial to have a crossbow too with concept art and everything. They put that on the roster higher than optimization and actual game fixes.

Game fixes? Whats that? Lets sell you a 7$ crossbow and a 20$ revolver.

Now they are placing bubbles over the bases to make vehicles in a combined arms game worthless. Turning it infantry only, when there are many better infantry only games.

Planetside 2 is dying because the devs can't make up their own mind. Is it planetside, or a battlefield knock off? They are also so fanboyish for their own faction they give other factions bad weapons and abilities then tell them to "deal with it."

The balancing is a big joke, and its because of that unbalanced gameplay that keeps their "precious" MLG from playing planetside.

I am amazed the developers even listened to the playerbase this time. Normally you have to talk to them through twitter and reddit because they don't even look at their own official forums. Its because they want to be "hip" and "cool" but all they are doing is nailing the final nail in planetside's coffin when they keep giving the players what they don't fucking want.

Most of what you just said is hyperbole. The game is not dying, and the devs are always listening. In fact, weapon balancing is done specifically by what the players like and hate instead of by damage statistics and shit.

The game isn't pay to win. I'm a successful player and leader of a successful outfit on the miller server. Sure the members get a fuck-tonne more certs than me, but by the time you hit level 20 you'd have earned enough certs to have a well-endowed class or two, and a vehicle at that. By level 30 you could have 3-4 classes highly certed. The default guns aren't bad either, they certainly pack a punch and I prefer using the default NC weapons over NS a lot of the time anyway.

Also every single decision they have made, except for the inclusion of weapons, has been influenced by the player base. Command centre, Friday Night Ops and the Public Test Server all allow you to communicate what you want with the developers, and a couple of outfits on each server have guys who liaise directly with Sony on what the outfits thoughts are. Plus they're always commenting and replying to threads in their own forums.

I'm not fanboy-ing here, just stating some damn obvious points about one of the finer developers out there. Sure they make mistakes, such as the shotguns and strikers, or the enforcer, etc. but who doesn't make mistakes when you're pumping out gigabytes of new content for a F2P game each month?

EDIT The last 2 Game Updates have been almost exclusively about quality of life, being game updates designed to fix or tweak the game to make it more fair, more optimised, less buggy and cleaner-looking UI. In fact, the second-to-last update was something full of tweaks and fixes asked by the community. So your point on game fixes being below crossbows and pistols is moot.

I'm pretty sure I've just been baited by a troll, but how has the game been copying battlefield for months if they want to put a crossbow in? Pretty sure that's not a decision to try and steal Battlefield fans, but more of a luxury item and shits-and giggles for those who want to spend for it.

Most of what you just said is hyperbole. The game is not dying, and the devs are always listening. In fact, weapon balancing is done specifically by what the players like and hate instead of by damage statistics and shit.

The game isn't pay to win. I'm a successful player and leader of a successful outfit on the miller server. Sure the members get a fuck-tonne more certs than me, but by the time you hit level 20 you'd have earned enough certs to have a well-endowed class or two, and a vehicle at that. By level 30 you could have 3-4 classes highly certed. The default guns aren't bad either, they certainly pack a punch and I prefer using the NC weapons over NS a lot of the time.

Also every single decision they have made, except for the inclusion of weapons, has been influenced by the player base. Command centre, Friday Night Ops and the Public Test Server all allow you to communicate what you want with the developers, and a couple of outfits on each server have guys who liaise directly with Sony on what the outfits thoughts are. Plus they're always commenting and replying to threads on their own forums.

I'm not fanboy-ing here, just station some damn obvious points about one of the finer developers out there. Sure they make mistakes, such as the shotguns and strikers, or the enforcer, etc. but who doesn't make mistakes when you're pumping out gigabytes of new content for a F2P game each month?

And that's the problem as well. When they do listen to players its mostly due to whining.

Waah infantry killed me, buff tanks.

Waah that tank killed me, nerf tanks.

waah I can't dodge missiles from a fighter jet while driving a big slow tank, nerf missiles and fighter jets.

Everything I seen from developer is a kneejerk reaction and quick fix. Nerfs and buffs to the same couple weapons is not the same as actual balancing. Neither are the dome shields they want so badly.

The game is still fundamentally broken.

And communicating what players want? People whined about every fucking change on there and the developers put them through anyway, especially when ZOE came out for maxes.

In fact, I remember when Higby came out and said he doesn't even want to hear anything players say because he thinks forum posts aren't worth the time to read them a month ago. That was another flame war.

And commenting on their own forums? Higby has 126 posts on planetside's forums. 400+ on reddit. Even more on twitter.

Oh really? And its not pay to win? Then explain to the people who see SOE put out shitloads of overpowered guns, nerf them, then release new ones that do the same thing as before.

If you don't pay, you don't get overpowered weapons when they matter. 7$ for a lease of a weapon in an unbalanced game. Planetside 2 is so greedy now barely anyone can say its not pay to win anymore. The shotgun horde was proof enough, pay 7$ and you get the gun when its the most powerful. A one shot kill gun. This implant debacle is just diarrhea icing on the shit cake.

Yes! Phew... I'm a little irked that they had to delay it again to make these changes, but at least we won't be stuck with a paid buff system now. It's very hard to rescind a paid feature once you introduce it.